What decades do you think started culturally on time with their chronological start?

I personally think the cultural 2010's started right on time. 2009 felt like the perfect mixture of both 2000's and early 2010's culture IMO. However, the year 2010 itself was already pretty firmly early 2010's, with electropop and the release of the first iPad and emo being almost dead. Many would say that 2008, specifically the latter part, was the start of early 2010's, however, 2008 was more like the peak of late 2000's culture rather than the start of early 2010's. Even though Obama won the 2008 Election, he didn't actually become the president until 2009, not to mention 2008 was the last full year Myspace was still pretty popular.

1980 is right between Disco Demolition Night and Video Killed The Radio Star (1979) and the debut of MTV (1981), and was when Reagan was elected and when New Wave and NWOBHM became popular, so close enough

1930s, 1940s and 1950s as well. Arguably 1920s, but a lot of the culture was there 1918/1919, it took a little while still for it to become the "roaring" '20s though.

1980 is right between Disco Demolition Night and Video Killed The Radio Star (1979) and the debut of MTV (1981), and was when Reagan was elected and when New Wave and NWOBHM became popular, so close enough


The cultural 80s began on the nose in 1981 as the 70s came slamming to an end in late 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan and the assassination of John Lennon. It was like night and day. The difference in feeling was palpable.

Both the 1920s and 1930s started right on time. January 1920 was when not only Prohibition went into effect, but also when "Swanee" became a megahit, not to mention the Progressive Era had run completely out of steam, Felix the Cat had just made his debut, and the post-WWI climate was quite set in stone by that point.

For the 1930s, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street in October 1929, so by the very beginning of the 1930s, the effects of the Great Depression were becoming felt on a wide scale level. Not only did the economy transform sharply on the tick, but so did the film industry; talkies were introduced in the late 1920s, but it was roughly 1930 when silent movies were dead and sound films became the norm.

The 1980s kind of started on time, but moreso if you lived in Britain and not the US, since neoliberal politics and new wave arrived there sooner than they did stateside. You can definitely make an argument that the first quarter of the 1980s were a clear step into 80s territory, but that period still feels much more connected to Generation Jones than the MTV Generation in America.

The 2010s started on time on an overall level, but the different layers are sort of incongruous. Politically, I would point to the Lehman Bailout, election of Barack Obama, and start of the Tea Party as the overall start of the decade, but music wasn't predominantly '10s until at least 2010, possibly mid-2010, to be honest, and both film and television took longer to develop a '10s identity than politics and music did. Whatever the case, I would still definitely say the 2010s began on time, in a way that the 1960s certainly did not, but the change wasn't as abrupt or obvious as the 1930s shift was.

What do you think made the 1950's start right on time? I feel like the Post WWII 40's (late 1945-49) are a part of the same era as the early 50's, so I'm curious to hear what you think.

I completely agree on all the others though. :)


However, in the world of radio, TV, and film, it was quite a bit different. 1948 is often seen as the last year of the Golden Age of Hollywood, while television hit it big in 1950-51 after slowly building popularity in the late 1940s, and this was also when radio's Golden Age ended. Women's hair started to get shorter around this time as well. Politically, 1950 was about Korea and the Commies, a couple years earlier, it was still about the Marshall Plan and reconstruction of the war-torn nations and potential for aftershocks that could result in WWIII. Then you have things like the Bebop era of jazz that are unique to the late '40s. That said, late 1945-1949 (the prologue), 1950-1953 (the "hoy hoy" years), 1954-1959 (the "malt shop" hears), and 1960-1963 (the epilogue) all seem like distinct subsets of the "greater 1950s", going from jazz hipster to hoy hoy cool to greaser to hot rod & surfer in terms of adolescent cultures. The reality is most decades gradually blend in from one to another, though certain ones (1920s-1930s, 1930s-1940s, or even 1990s-2000s) have quicker sheeshs than others. Usually a major war, political shift, or economic disaster causes these shifts to happen, though tech in the last couple decades may also play a role, since around 2000 was when many people started to use some form of the Web daily and that knowledge-based economy started to take off.